'This Week' Transcript: Disaster in the Pacific

But what bothers me is that we're focusing on one little slice of that
pie. And, by the way, I noticed you didn't bring me in because there's
not a lot of pie there.

(CROSSTALK)

BRAZILE: We're focusing...

TAPPER: Twelve percent is the domestic discretionary budget.

BRAZILE: Absolutely.

TAPPER: And that's what everybody...

BRAZILE: Non-security. I mean, and imagine if this was the kitchen
table we all sat at when we had to make budget decisions. And they say,
OK, we've got a budget deficit. Let's throw the kids off of Head Start.

TAPPER: I do want to talk about one small nibble of that domestic
discretionary spending slice, which is National Public Radio and the
funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, because Cokie is a
long-time employee of NPR. This was not a great week for NPR.

ROBERTS: No, to put it mildly.

TAPPER: Conservative guerilla filmmaker James O'Keefe did a sting
operation and caught the now-former vice president for fundraising
saying many disparaging things about the Republican Party and the Tea
Party. He's gone. The CEO, Vivian Schiller, is gone. And then,
towards the end of the week, this video was released. It shows Betsy
Liley, NPR's senior director of institutional giving, talking to the
fictitious donor who claimed he was with the Muslim Brotherhood and
wanted to give -- or a group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood that
wanted to give a $5 million gift.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): It sounded like you were saying that NPR would be able to
shield us from a government audit. Is that correct?

LILEY: I think that is the case, especially if you were anonymous, and
I can inquire about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Cokie, you've been at NPR for almost 40 years. Obviously,
this institution means a lot to you, but why should we care?

ROBERTS: Well, I should just say that they did then reject that money
and sent internal e-mails basically saying this is totally unacceptable.
We have to have tax forms, all of that. So, you know, that -- that
should be stated.

But, look, we should care, because 34 million people listen every week
and want to get the news that you get there, that you can't get anyplace
else.

NPR has got 17 foreign bureaus. That's something you can't say for any
other broadcast organization these days and -- and brings you terrific
information day in and day out, week in and week out. And the reporters
who are there on the line being shot at in North Africa at the moment
are being very badly served by the management that's now gone.

TAPPER: George, very quickly.

WILL: We learned this week redundantly that NPR is run by people who
don't like people like me, which is fine. The problem is, there are
14,000 radio stations in this country. The government shouldn't be
subsidizing neither entertainment and certainly not journalism. In
fact, this is a solution in search of a problem.

ROBERTS: Well, there are not 14,000 radio stations in rural areas,
which is where most of the federal funding goes. Most of those stations
are the ones that -- NPR gets hardly any money from the federal
government and the big stations get hardly any money. But the little
tiny, rural stations that -- where there's nothing else on the air, get
a lot of money and they would go dark.